


come and get you some

by Anonymous



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Multi, Oral Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Power Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:47:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29516928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When she'd had vengeance, all that could be decided.A Forsworn Dragonborn walks into Markarth and dabbles in local politics.Written for the Skyrim Kink Meme in 2015
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Ondolemar, Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 18
Collections: Anonymous Fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> made some small formatting edits and split into chapters for hopefully easier reading :)

She missed her furs.

Muriel gathered the cloak around her shoulders closer under her chin, shivering against the ice-laden wind. True, she would be colder yet in Forsworn furs unless she bathed herself in magical warmth, a trick she'd learned from her mother not from any Briarheart or stern-faced revolutionary witch. But she missed them all the same, the taunting armour she'd crafted herself, baring throat and thighs and breastbone. Wearing them felt like laughing in the face of Nord usurpers, and she wanted that fire of defiance back in her bones.

Let the Nords huddle in their city of stone and whine about the chill and the hard beds. The Forsworn knew how to weather a winter of Skyrim.

“I'd like a room,” she said, hearing her voice draw low into the chill and hollow air of the Silver-Blood inn. She'd brought the winter in with her; soon the fire would seep back into the room. But never much – the high ceiling and stone walls ensured that. She'd been here only twice before, but tonight....tonight mattered.

Tomorrow, she visited the Keep.

The innkeeper gave her a thin smile, distracted from his echoing repartee, and she slid the coins across the counter. His eyes flicked down her hand and his smile stilled briefly, eyes turning assessing.

She had blood under her fingernails, she realized, and retracted her hand without traitorous haste. It was the small things that she often forgot. Combing her hair and swearing by the Nine - or Eight, depending on her audience - and cleaning the blood from under her nails.

Still. There were and always would be mercenaries aplenty on the road, or simply travelers who had needed to butcher their own game on the way. She knew that her face had not given her away; she was far too well trained for that. His wife's voice rose sharply from by the fire, his son cringed, and the innkeeper turned to rejoin their sniping conversation with relish. He broke off only to guide her to one of the grey rooms, and she sank down on the stone bed and nodded once to his continued pleasantries.

The door shut behind him with a final _clank_. It made it real, somehow; the heavy bronze metal cemented her in place and in purpose.

She called a fistful of fire to her palm and pulled up her legs. Perhaps conventional minds would claim she'd slept in less comfortable places, but she missed the hard dirt and close hide tents more than ever right now. Watching the reddish flames lick over her knuckles and wrist was soothing.

She imagined killing the acerbic innkeeper and his angry wife, his plagued children. She felt her lips part as she drew in a stabilizing breath.

Markarth was corrupt and bitter. It was ripe to be lanced of its unjust dominion as infection was lanced from gangrenous flesh. Under Madanach's hand, perhaps. Under the hagravens.

She turned her hand, letting streamers of fire curl their way up her inner forearm.

When she'd had vengeance, all that could be decided.

She rose early in the cold morning and pulled on the last pieces of her armour, resecuring her knives where they had been stowed beneath the pillow of her cloak. She preferred her magic as might any proper witch, but when just waking she was quicker with her knives and they were safer anyhow until the mind was alert enough for magic.

She left the cold cell of her room and padded out into the main room. The innkeeper and his wife were fighting again with, as near as Muriel could tell, malicious delight. She quietly purchased one of the chewy, glazed cream treats from their daughter and left the inn licking her fingers, wondering at the fact that somewhere in these winding streets was a baker who indulged in such fancies.

She liked it - some of these luxuries. She wouldn't bother lying to herself.

She didn't say a word to the Silver Blood dog she passed on the street, leaning in the shadow of the bridge. He eyed her as she passed but it had taken everything she had in her not to recoil or spit. She'd gotten so good at spotting them it was almost like picking up the stink of Silver-Blood coin in their pockets.

He'd marked her face, but that was inevitable. It was something people did when you lived in a city. You were known to strangers, and anonymity was a luxury.

She climbed the stone steps. The guards barely batted an eye and she inclined her head, exulted in the subtle curl of one older man's lips at her starkly painted Breton face. She marked _his_ face now, for the fun of it.

The doors seemed unbelievably tall when she put a hand on them. Muriel drew in a deep breath, soft enough to be inconspicuous while bolstering her, and pushed. They scraped over the grit on the stone, giving way, and the cool darkness of the earth was briefly reassuring before the magnitude of the room before her was revealed. Her breath caught subtly in her throat and she moved inside, hearing arguing voices echo.

 _Now,_ she thought, _now is when you begin the performance and walked forward._

Half an hour and a profoundly disturbing conversation among the dead later, Muriel found herself moving with ease down the hallway. The priest of Arkay's fervent thanks made her feel more confident in Markarth, which she supposed was silly; Jarl Igmund was demonstrably a hard man who made hard decisions and the good thoughts of a panicky young priest wouldn't protect her. But fooling a priest of Nord gods felt like an accomplishment.

"The Silver-Blood family _will_ be heard," the man said as she passed him. Thongvor, she thought, for even she'd had spies trickle soft words down into her ears, as little as her leaders were interested in her urgency. The clear fury in his voice made her want to turn, question him, but she knew she'd get more answers keeping an ear to the ground than pressing an angry, puffed up Nord for answers.

The steps climbed in front of her. Distant steamworks clanged around her. Her pulse was quickening as she mounted the tall, tall stairs and saw the figure of the Jarl on his stone throne. He sat in the carcass of piled older civilizations and wore his certainty in his justice like his crown.

She'd take that away from him, she vowed.

Muriel took her next step forward and was almost bowled over. The man - the elf, she realized - in armour gave her a single brusque glance and then had gone past, his compatriot not giving her even that. They hastened to meet a tall man in dark officious robes who walked toward them.

 _Elves_ , she thought, bemused, remembering the Silver-Blood's truculent fury. _Elves with their eyes on Markarth._

The tall mer slowed as he reached what must be two of his guard. His head angled toward the mouth of the taller armoured mer, and then he straightened. His face looked proud and impassive, carven in severe and elegant lines. She'd never seen a creature like him before, and it was only when his eyes, sweeping distractedly across the stone, came to a stop on her that she realized she was gaping.

One corner of his mouth twitched and her mouth closed instantly. She was no stranger to male arrogance. Feckless passions, especially for violence, were largely how the Briarhearts and hags kept the youth occupied and, if not suited for it, away from thinking too much.

She was still looking at him, she realized, and under the shadow of his hood his eyebrows crept up. He resumed his pace forward and she resettled her feet as if preparing for a fight.

His eyes flicked up and down her body. It wasn't a sexual assessment, but a cold one, and she disliked the sense that he'd stripped her bare, evaluated her and dismissed her. It prickled under her skin and she found herself taking a step forward and meeting him halfway, inspecting his face curiously. Yes - proud and golden skinned and alien.

The Forsworn had no more fondness for the Dominion than the Nords, but it couldn't be said that they had less fondness. After all, it does warm one's heart to see one's enemy arrested and demeaned, even at the hands of another foe.

"The Thalmor know how to deal with Talos worshippers," he said, his voice carrying clearly throughout the entire vast chamber. Muriel blinked. He spoke as if continuing a conversation, perhaps with his associate, but the words were clearly chosen to travel to every ear possible in the keep.

 _What showmanship_ , she thought, not very impressed, but it was hard to inspect his face and not see the boredom there. He was taunting the Nords to dispell the tedium.

She realized she'd smiled when one of his eyebrows arched even further. "Something amuses you?" he said dryly.

"No," she said. Perhaps she could use the Altmer. The thought became more appealing by the moment as great steamworks churned within the walls, lending a disorienting background cacophony of noise to the oddly calm conversation. "Who are the Thalmor?"

She knew vaguely enough, but she was curious as to what he'd say. And her people struggled so with the Nords it created a less than useful tunnel vision. His eyes narrowed slightly, and perhaps her tone was more insolent than wise, but then his lips curled in a hard smile. "We're the ruling body of the Aldmeri Dominion. Saviors of Mer. Victors of the Great War." He paused, and his eyes trailed thoughtfully to the alcove where the throne rested. For all his irritation and imperiousness, a chill passed through her as she recognized a snake's patience in his gaze. “The Empire exists because we allow it to exist, and I'm here to make sure the Jarl of Markarth remembers that."

"I take it you aren't from Markarth, then," she said, keeping her voice level. She didn't want to betray her budding curiosity, and noises echoed and carried here.

He gave a cutting laugh. "As if this craggy wretch of a city could give birth to a superiorly bred Mer such as myself. No, I'm not from Markarth. I was sent here to lead the Thalmor's interests in this corner of Skyrim. It's my mission to root out all Talos worship in this city."

 _More Nord gods._ No person in Skyrim, _especially_ no Forsworn, was oblivious to the Stormcloaks supposed plight. His eyes raked over her face and she thought with a renewed chill _the Thalmor are spies._

She should stay far away from this mer.

"You're hunting Talos worshippers? Why?"

The question came out of her mouth anyway. He didn't betray irritation, only a faintly disdainful curl of his finely-shaped mouth. "It's a religious matter," he said coolly. "The Thalmor do not recognize Talos as a god. He was only a man, and does not deserve to a place in our pantheon. The Empire has agreed to accept our beliefs, and its citizens have a responsibility to cease their heretical worship."

Muriel yearned briefly for the little bird-skull necklace she'd made when she was twelve, and had fingered ever since when she was deep in thought. She'd stripped herself of Forsworn trappings but she wanted something physical to anchor herself. The Silver-Bloods, buried in the wealth and treachery of the city. Igmund, unwilling to go against them. The Thalmor, disdainful of the Nords and ready to twist the knife.

Her chin jerked up when he drew even closer, his eyes sliding over her face almost as palpably as a touch. His stare was less impersonal this time, and the Thalmor soldiers beside him angled their shoulder slightly away, scanning the hall. They responded to his slightest signal, she noted, keeping an eye on the hall to guard privacy.

And he modulated his voice with perfect ease, dampening the sibilants until it hardly carried at all without whispering or hiding. "You're awfully inquisitive, aren't you? I like that. Perhaps you'd care to solve a little problem I'm having?"

Muriel opened her mouth to say no. She really did.

"What do you need?"

Her voice came out too low, too intrigued. This time when he smiled it was satisfied.

"Ogmund the skald. He's old, respected, and I know for a fact that he worships Talos in his home. But the Jarl has been hesitant to call for his arrest. I want you to break in to his home and find evidence."

Muriel folded her arms across her chest. "Like a common thief?" But she was smiling now, pleased at the thought.

He locked eyes with her. His own narrowed slightly, still smiling, as he said, "like a loyal citizen."

Mariah considered, her breath shallow in her throat. Plotting - _conspiring_ \- against the Nords in their own house. She thought of the Reachmen dragged into this war, pressed into the dirt after it, kicked like dogs while trying only to live their lives. A pleasant idea, to erode them at the edges while she planned to strike at their heart.

She didn't answer aloud as she walked past the three mer, but she only swallowed her smile as she approached the throne.


	2. Chapter 2

Muriel waited until night was almost breaking into pre-morning before she broke into the Thalmor ambassador's quarters.

She disliked the idea of Jarl Igmund's guards catching a glimpse of her. She hated how aware they were of her face already. She'd gotten used to slipping and sneaking, evading any questing eyes to go about her business.

All these explanations were true. All these explanations were inadequate. In truth, she wanted to know if she could do it.

Were the Thalmor as sloppy as the Nords? As sure in their power - as careless in their power? She pressed herself into a veil of shadows and waited while trudging feet in uninspiring fur boots went slowly down the hall. Her sharpest knife could hamstring that leg through the fur easily.

When the day fully broke she would leave to eliminate the bandit nest the steward had mentioned. So tonight, before she left the city for however long it took, was the time to put Ogmund's Talos amulet into Ondolemar's hands.

She crept light footed through the narrow stone hall, drawing the shadows around her and listening with irritation to the churning in the walls. The Nords didn't, from what she knew, understand a quarter of all the processes in the Markarth's underkeep, and they utilized less. But on and on the Dwemer steamworks toiled. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck, but it also brought morbid pleasure. Things in the Reach endured.

But it also obscured her ability to hear anything inside the rooms. The short hall had a blind turn and her lips twitched as she approached it, curious for the advantage it gave. If it weren't for her empty pockets - in the camps they hunted and bartered and any substantial gold was passed up to their leaders for various clandestine purposes serving the greater good - she would have gone to the Hag's Cure.

But the rooms were quiet. No lamp guttered, no candle was lit. She rubbed a hand over her breastbone, missing her pendant, and slid around the corner.

She was low on gold but high on stealth. No sound greeted her adventurous foot, and when she padded with featherlight softness into the more open air of the chamber, her keen eyes picked out the shapes of furniture and a heavy metal door to her left and right.

Attempting to sneak further would be pushing the boundaries of an effort for the upper hand into hostility - and be near impossible besides, taking into account the massive doors. The door to the Thalmor quarters had been chancy enough, softened with three iterations of a muffling spell. Should she merely light a lamp and sit? Should she light a lamp and knock?

She took another step forward, toward the blocky prominence of what looked like a desk, and a body drove into her from the side.

Instinct slipped neatly into control before her brain had fully processed the physical. Fire blazed up along her arm, and a keen iron knife was instantly in her free hand. A hard forearm struck her knife arm, driving it down. The rock wall hit her back. And a hard, armoured hand struck her shoulder, leaving her numb to her fingertips. The fire guttered.

She reached for it again, teeth bared, ready to light her whole body in flames and bring her feet to bear -

"Douse the fire," a harsh voice ordered. "Or I'll kill you, human."

She remembered herself. She remembered where she was. Muriel stayed tense and furious for a second, teeth bared, and then she let out a slow breath.

She smiled into the dark. "My mistake, elf,” she said. “You're good at your job.”

A harsh breath escaped her captor. “Justicar,” he said flatly. “It is the Breton.”

A candlelight spell kindled, and then proper lamps cast a dull golden glow across the room. She flicked a glance over the armoured mer's shoulder and saw Ondolemar in the doorway, face curious and openly amused. He wore loose robes, held clasped shut with a hand that should have looked vulnerable and spidery with its long fingers, sharp knuckles and narrow lines. It didn't; it looked poised and dangerous as a stiletto, and she could feel the magic he held in the air.

Behind him stood his second bodyguard, holding an unsheathed sword, naked from the waist up, and smiling unpleasantly. “What inspired this little adventure?” he asked.

Muriel relaxed into the grip on her body. She quenched the flames and the mer holding her paused, cocked his head to the side, and eyed her out of one pale eye without releasing her. “I had a delivery to make,” she said. “I didn't feel like being seen when I came in.”

“So you thought you'd break in,” the mer holding her said flatly.

She rolled her head to look at him and he adjusted his grip. It allowed her no extra slack, but it eased the cramp in her shoulder and allowed them to be looking each other in the eye from inches away with a semblance of comfort. His face had all the harshness to its steep bone-structure and heavy lidded eyes one could dream of from an intimidating invader and potential torturer. And he didn't look happy with her now.

She pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek, remembering her magic. Remembering her knives. Remembering her purpose.

So they weren't as careless as the Nords, after all. She'd been caught. She shouldn't feel this terrible little thrill.

“Should I apologize?”

“Do not disgrace yourself with insincerity on top of petty crime,” he advised, a dry note to his low voice.

Across the room, Ondolemar laughed. With her pinned to the wall, he looked almost good-humoured. His eyes seemed near luminous as they met hers, and he gestured briefly.

She had no idea how the mer holding her detected it, but he reacted. He let her slide down the wall, rough stone tugging at her fur armour, the cold metal sheathing him brushing her warm thigh. Muriel shivered and narrowed her eyes, and he stepped back with bared teeth.

“You have what I asked for, then?” Ondolemar gazed at her, his expression surprised and pleased.

Muriel reached into her furs and extracted the amulet. “I do.”

“Excellent,” he said, softly. The mer who had held her stiffened when she stepped forward, but Ondolemar flicked his gaze between them and then the zealous bodyguard only paced alongside her. The mer behind Ondolemar watched all three of them, a thin strange smile dancing over his lips. Of all the mer in the room – Ondolemar, still holding a hot fist of magic beneath the air of the room, and the mer with his armoured fists – he made her skin creep. His eyes were too dark - no, true black she realized with a little start as she got close enough. His face too amiable and vicious at once.

She dropped the amulet into Ondolemar's hand, and his smile bloomed. Muriel was glad that smile was not directed at her, for that she was also grateful his eyes weren't on her to see her struggling not to gawp. It was a poisonous beauty that belonged to these elves, she thought.

“Excellent,” he said softly. “This will be enough to deal with the old skald. And that will not please Thongvor, I imagine.”

“But the thought pleases _you_ , Breton.”

Muriel's eyes jumped to the black-eyed mer. It was hard to tell in those pupilless eyes, but he must have been watching her and she thought he watched her now. Too keenly, the long tail of his hair heavy and dark bronze over one lean naked shoulder.

She needed to work on hiding her emotions, evidently. Giving up the ghost of subtlety now, she shrugged one shoulder and said lightly, “it behooves a proper citizen to show appropriate gratification when justice is done.”

The guard beside her snorted with real humour, and now Ondolemar was smiling at her. His sharply planed face creased with a cool, dangerous smile and perilously warm eyes. “And you,” he said. “What is your name?”

Muriel faltered, taken aback. Of course he would ask her name. What a foolish thing to stumble over. But she did – her tongue stuck in her mouth. Only her family and the hagravens had known her name before. There was no need for anyone else. Among different clans of Forsworn recognition was silent and efficient.

She handed them only a name, not a rope to hang herself. It told them nothing more significant than she'd already given them. But in front of three agents of the Thalmor, her tongue was still thick when she forced it to shape, “my name is Muriel.”

“Muriel,” Ondolemar said. He murmured it, rolling the sound in his mouth like fine wine, making her shiver. His fingers closed hard over the amulet.

“You've done us a great service,” he said, and smiled again.

He paused, and a look passed between him and the mer at her shoulder. "Wait here," Ondolemar commanded. "Ilmiril."

The black-eyed mer inclined his head.

"Fetch her payment."


	3. Chapter 3

When Ilmiril vanished into the back room, the guard behind her seemed to take some signal from Ondolemar. He walked around her, flanking Ondolemar as the Justicar strolled to the desk and sank down. "You will wait," he said.

Muriel cocked her head at him. A hot spark of curiosity and pleasure flared to life inside of her. A spy in the middle of enemy territory did almost nothing idly; he was inviting her to indulge her curiosity, where he could watch.

She licked her lower lip thoughtfully, teeth pinching the soft flesh, and watched his eyes drop to her mouth. It had been a long time since she'd flirted, but they were doing it now.

It would be rude of her to decline such a polite invitation.

The room shone now, filled with mellow light. She stepped forward, evading the arc of the guard's movement, tracing her steps along the perimeter of the room. Ondolemar rubbed his fingers together thoughtfully, tracking her as thoroughly as she was watching him. She realized that she wasn't paying as much attention as she'd intended to the craggy stone room, the austere furnishings, and the deep burning golden trim of ancient Dwemer fixtures. The two of them captivated her attention, the only real contestant being Ilmiril in the other room, making no noise.

"And you are?" she asked, turning her eyes from the armoured mer and touching one of the wooden wardrobes with her fingertips.

There was a brief, fraught pause. She could almost see Ondolemar inclining his head behind her, indicating this fresh inch of knowledge was acceptable. "Meryaran," the guard replied, his voice deep and measured.

A step at the doorway. She turned and was triangulated between them, flanked, both standing mer closer to the door than she was. Her mind ticked thoughtfully over the power in the room but then lost focus too easily. She wasn't thinking of any of them like an enemy.

She turned back to Ondolemar. It hadn't been much of a gamble, asking her to break in. He could always deny that he'd even implied she do more than investigate, and who would she go to? Igmund, who wouldn't appreciate it, Thongvor, who wouldn't be able to gain any ground he didn't have, Ogmund, whose ire would have had no effect at all. Still, whether his curiosity had been sparked before he delegated the menial task or after, his entire attention was fixed on her now and it was more formidable than she'd expected.

"So why me?" she asked.

A faint smile played over his face. The warm lamplight danced, slicing golden light across his arcing cheekbones and thin, exquisitely sculpted mouth. "The empire has fewer allies in Markarth than it should," he said noncommittally.

 _I am not an ally of the empire_. Well, she'd made herself one for all intents and purposes. "I'm not a very political woman," she said instead. She felt like a drop of blood suspended in honey, like in one of her mother's old spells. Ilmiril stood a step or two away from the door deeper into their quarters, his ink-black eyes fixed unblinkingly on her, and Meryaran's gaze moved thoughtfully between Muriel and Ondolemar, and Ondolemar...Ondolemar watched her, with a smile of faintly wicked curiosity. As if the simple offer of an amulet had gotten her head over heels into...gratitude. He must have been incredibly bored.

Her toes curled inside of her boots. She began to walk across the room toward him, and Ilmiril smoothly started to move as well, pacing her with a cat's light footed tread.

"I have no allies in Markarth," she said.

His long legs shifted. The heavy dark fabric of his robes slid aside. The ground was cold under her feet even through her fur boots, telling her she should replace them. Maybe even dedicate a day or two to crafting her own with all the care armour deserved.

Her mind danced over distractions like that until she reached him and had to make a decision. There was a split second to weigh whether she should back away, and then his arm dropped, wrist extending to brush those long hard fingers against her thigh.

Muriel gambled, and she lifted a leg across his lap. Ondolemar's eyes sparked, and he rose to meet her. His hands dropped onto her hips and curved, just riding the bottom of her waist. Ilmiril was suddenly beside her, close enough for his breath to heat her neck. Meryaran straightened slowly and deliberately, and their eyes were burning into her, and it was a thrill straight to her core.

"Continue to act as a loyal citizen to the empire..." Ondolemar reached up and tugged at the lacings at her close-fitting armour. "You have myself." A dangerous smile glowed in his eyes. "And, of course, my guards."

"As an ally," she repeated, to clarify, as she settled across his thighs. Her knees tucked into the heavy, richly made chair - not stone, likely not placed in his quarters by Igmund's staff - to support her, still holding her weight mostly suspended off his legs.

"As an ally."

A hand fisted suddenly in her hair. Ilmiril yanked her head back, exposing her throat. Muriel swallowed her pulse down, repressed the fire she wanted to call yet again, felt Ondolemar's lips touch her neck.

"This..." Their hands filled her with heat. Her mind danced on the knife's edge. Was this game worth it? Oh, it was, her witch's heart whispered. You gave blood or joy to the thirsty earth and it served for makeshift worship in any clan. "This, right now, isn't alliance." The mer behind her, Ilmiril, the strange-eyed witchthing, pulled her further back with his hard grip. Pulled her far enough back to kiss her mouth with swift, darting intentness. "Just," she said, and caught his mouth on the next taunting kiss. Her teeth nipped his lower lip, her tongue flashed to stroke the seam. "Just fun."

"I have no problem keeping business and pleasure separate, Breton," Ondolemar said. Her armour loosened around her torso and he brushed it away, crumpling the fur down her arms, peeling the leather from her breasts. "So let us cease speaking of business."

The last words that she needed. She succumbed to Ilmiril's commanding hand tight in her hair, and he manoeuvred her neatly into a position where he could kiss her again, more demanding this time, more lush, his tongue probing into her mouth.

The hands on her waist tightened. Ondolemar straightened and drew her hips further into his grasp, and she settled firmly into his lap. She was suspended between them, and her pulse was already kicking urgently up into her throat.

The guard - Meryaran - made a low growling sound deep in his throat. As if some internal restraint had been snapped, he moved forward. She tried to turn, to keep an eye on him, and Ilmiril laughed low in his throat and pulled her back harshly.

"The bedroom," Ondolemar said, his voice low, the cultured accents blurred by its throatiness. "I want you in the bedroom."

Muriel didn't know who moved first to obey him.

She slid off of his legs, feet finding the cold ground. Ilmiril swept her in tight to his body and she felt him close beneath her; sleek and lean against her back, hips pressed to her ass and erection already hot and half-hard. His hand cupped her breasts and he buried his face in her throat hungrily. His breath sawed out and he half-snarled, pleased by whatever scent he found on her.

Ondolemar rose slowly, robes sweeping down around him, eyes tracking up her body - she tried to parse what he'd be seeing, her splayed and trembling thighs, the other mer's bony golden hands tight on the bared brown flesh of her breasts, her mouth tender from his harsh kisses and her eyes fluttering - and finally setting on her face. His smile grew again and he stepped forward, twitching the shoulder of his robe back up with a careless hand.

"Yes," he murmured. He reached out and grazed her collarbone, hand moving up to firmly cradle the back of her neck. He brought her in for a kiss, different than Ilmiril's, harsher and more demanding as if to bely his calm, disdainful voice and hooded eyes.

He released her. "Bed," he ordered casually, and walked past them.

Meryaran glanced at her only once, and the hard edge of hunger in his eyes made her shudder as Ilmiril slowly, reluctantly loosened his grip. She shouldered free and he let her - turning her head to meet his eyes narrowly over her shoulder, she reached up and tugged at the last laces of her armour.

"The three of you?" she asked, proud that her voice sounded slightly mocking and concealed its tremor entirely.

Ilmiril smiled at her, a smile that transformed his beautiful, eerie face into a picture of bright-eyed, boyish delight. "Are you afraid you can't keep up?"

Muriel let the last of her furs drop to her feet and turned to him, slowly. She had the definite pleasure of watching the lines of his face slacken subtly, eyes widening and lips parting slightly as his gaze travelled down her body. He lingered on her heavy breasts, wide hips, the softness of her belly over the dense muscles of her body and the dark, curly hair between her legs. "Afraid you long-lived mer can't keep up with the quick blood of a human?" she asked softly, taking a step forward and hooking a finger in the waist of his pants.

He dropped to his knees so suddenly it startled her. She almost lurched back a step, then almost snarled as his black eyes flashed up at her. But no, it wasn't a taunt and this had gone beyond calling the other's bluff. His long hands slid caressingly up the back of her thighs to cup her ass and he leaned forward to nuzzle against her belly and then lower, burying his face against her thatch of dark curls. His tongue flicked out to stroke between the lips of her sex, unerringly finding the seat of her pleasure, and Muriel shuddered and wavered on her feet.

He groaned at her feet but when she looked down, swaying, those black eyes were fixed challengingly and hungrily on her, not submissive but _ravenous_. "Do you think I could satisfy you, little witch?" he tilted his chin up to ask in a lilting, provoking voice.

"Ilmiril," Meryaran growled from the doorway. Muriel put a hand instinctively on the kneeling mer's shoulder as they both jerked to look around.

Ilmiril sighed, breath fanning hotly across her belly, and rose slowly enough for her to feel his lips graze periodically against the skin of her body. He replied in a language she didn't know, his head cocked at his comrade, and then offered her his hand like a gentleman.

Muriel took it, and walked like a queen to the doorway where Meryaryan, still gleaming in dark armour, stood. She'd moved with dangerous dignity in stranger situations.

 _Stranger?_ She paused at the doorway to question the thought. Stranger than getting ready to be fucked by three Thalmor spies to cement an uncertain alliance against the moderate and rebellious Nords alike in Markarth? Perhaps not.

Never let it be said she was easy to spook.

The lights doused in the outer room, a quick guttering dash of power. In the bedroom there remained only a pale lunar glow.

The bed was a massive four poster affair. The wood gleamed darkly and the heavy bedcovers were dark green and gold and luxuriously thick. Muriel glanced at the mer, then at the bed again.

"You must have had _this_ brought to you," she said in wonder. She walked across the room, shadows velvety and thick in corners around the obviously magicka fuelled lamps. She touched one of the posts, smiling faintly.

"I am deprived of good company in the citizens of Markarth," Ondolemar said idly. A smile twitched at the corner of Meryaran's mouth. "Of good food, good character, and good weather. I prefer to enjoy as many of the small material luxuries of home as possible."

Meryaran turned his head like a bird of prey. He'd paced ahead of her to stand at Ondolemar's shoulder, a silent hawk jessed at the wrist again and waiting for a signal.

"Do you approve?" Ondolemar asked her with amusement.

Muriel let her hand slip away from the carven wood of the post. She turned, knowing their eyes followed the curve of her thigh, and bent to unfasten her fur boots - the last thing she wore other than her long, tangled hair. "How can I not?" she asked as she straightened.

Ilmiril was two steps closer than he had been, eyes wide and fascinated. Ondolemar, without taking his eyes off of her, said, "Meryaran, fetch us the vintage we received last week."

It was difficult to tell, but she thought the stonefaced mer looked impressed. He moved to the cabinet set against the wall and opened it, retrieving a smoky glass bottle, beautifully shaped.

"Come," Ondolemar said, crossing the room with grace. "Join me for a drink." He turned and extended his hand and she stepped forward to take it. They moved around her again, Ilmiril and Meryaran circling like wings folding around her, feet soundless. Ondolemar sank down on the bed, but the movement was demanding. He surrendered no authority when he sat before her, and she was so entranced a single tug of her fingers brought her over his lap.

He accepted the wine from Meryaran. Every little movement of his body was a tease, and he knew it, he must - finely stitched robes and warm golden skin brushing her breasts, the tender inside of her thighs, whispering across her nipples and brushing the soft underside of her wrists when she steadied herself.

"Drink," he said, a thin and hypnotic smile on her mouth, and her eyes flicked to Meryaran as she took the bottle.

She tipped it to her mouth. It tasted like heady summer, and it packed a punch; she swallowed a mouthful of it and gasped, drawing in her next breath with slow luxury. Then she swore, with slow amazement, and licked at her lower lip.

Ondolemar smiled. On such an austere, beautiful face it was odd to see a mundane, pleased sort of expression. She supposed national pride was virtually the coin of the Thalmor.

"I'm astonished," she said, the pleasure of the wine, it's hot glow inside of her, and the constant whisper of _his legs under her, keeping her thighs just spread enough to feel the cool air keenly, his chest inches away, his mouth just parting to show white strong teeth, all of his tawny and promising and magic-drenched_ untying her tongue and setting loose her caution. "You'd share such a gift with a barbarian?"

"You've enlivened the last few days in Markarth immeasurably," he said, inching one brow up. "And done us a fine favour. I'd say you've earned it."

"We shouldn't understate our pleasure at having you here," Ilmiril murmured in her ear, and then he swept aside her hair and kissed her throat. He was all teeth now, teeth and warm tongue and insistent tugging pleasure. Muriel let her head fall back, working to relax the tension building in her shoulders at his mouth so close to her veins, and Ondolemar's eyes went hooded as her back arched and her breasts rose.

Muriel pushed the bottle into Ondolemar's hands. "Drink," she said, and her voice came out breathless.

He drank. She tugged out of Ilmiril's hands, challenging him to keep her, so she could kiss the last golden droplets off of his mouth. She was all but lost in the next second; Ondolemar kissed her slowly and lazily, pulling her in body to body. She felt the hard heat of his erection against the soft giving space between her thighs, and her stomach wrenched with how bad she wanted him inside of her.

Ilmiril responded playfully, winding one hand through her hair and taking the bottle from Ondolemar. He pressed it first to her lips, and then before she could swallow kissed her again, tongue flirting against hers own, sipping from her lips as the angle allowed. "If anything could sweeten the vintage," he growled, and then he angled his face up and offered the bottle to Meryaran, who still stood apart.

"Oh, indulge," Ondolemar ordered.

Ilmiril hissed softly against her hair, then kissed her jaw. "Unwind, old man," he taunted, and Muriel turned her neck to nuzzle at his lush mouth and barbed tongue, absorbing their interplay curiously.

The stiff silence continued for another long, fraught second. Then Meryaran sighed, and she felt him move a step closer. He moved with the same lightfooted, muscular grace they all did - even Ondolemar, the politician of the bunch - but she made her eyes flutter open if only to watch his strong throat work as he swallowed.

"You going to fuck her in full armour?" Ilmiril said, laughing softly. "I think that's for an evening where we don't have all this time to enjoy."

Ondolemar gave a long sibilant sigh. "Let Igmund wait on me tomorrow morning," he said, irritation prickling under his tone. "A city full of traitors and heretics." One of his long fingers traced a path between her breasts to her belly. Muriel wondered, drunk on Ilmiril's kisses and morbidly amused, what he'd think of her worship. Perhaps best not to know. Or perhaps he wouldn't give a damn, since none of her gods had ever been human, or elevated enough to be banned by the high and mighty Aldmeri Dominion.

A Forsworn always lived her life on the edge of a knife. This might be pushing it farther than even her wildest brothers and sisters would deem wise.

She didn't intend to stop, so it was meaningless to ponder. Muriel rocked her hips against Ondolemar's cock, managing to arch her spine so that only a fold of his robe prevented the head from slipping inside. A guttural sound was ripped out of his oh so refined throat, and his hands clamped down on her waist. "Then let him - " she panted, " - wait. I grow tired of being talked over like a diversion barely worth a fraction of your attention."

Ilmiril surged against her back with a snarl of laughter, crushing her between them. Muriel made an undignified sound approaching a whine of greed under the influx of sensation. She rocked against Ondolemar until his heavy-lidded eyes looked near black.

Hands gripped her hips tightly. Ilmiril kissed the back of her neck, pressing himself to her like a second skin and guiding her rhythm until the both of them were fucking her body against Ondolemar. The Justicar's elegant lips curled in a snarl, and he fisted a hand in her hair.

"Muriel." He drew the word in between his teeth. And then, "Ilmiril, cease."

The soldier drew in a hissing breath and stilled, his cheek dragging along her skin as he stilled her with him. Ondolemar turned his head just a fraction, his eyes drifting from Muriel. "Meryaran," he said. Just that. No command, no question.

She closed her eyes and depended instead on the aching sensitivity of her other senses. "As always, Justicar, I advocate caution." Gauntleted fingers brushed her lips as Ilmiril held her pinned.

Ondolemar replied in another language - it must be a tongue of the Summerset isles, the words they kept using over her head. It was difficult for her to focus, because Ilmiril had twined his fingers into her hair and was tugging softly, mouthing delicate bites along the back of her neck.

Meryaran sighed, as if surrendering to his comrades' recklessness. He tipped the bottle to his lips again and drank. He was more physically imposing than his companions, even if she didn't believe for a second they were less dangerous, and the fine wine didn't soften him. He looked at her out of glittering eyes and said, "then, Justicar, for now I will keep watch."

Ondolemar laughed, and Ilmiril sank his teeth into her skin.

"Wine," she said, gasping at the bite, and held out her hand imperiously until her palm was filled with the cool glass. Meryaran's callused fingers touched her wrist but did not linger, a hot coal of fleeting contact that pounded her pulse in her throat. She sipped, dizzy with the luxury of it more than the alcohol, and found the Justicar regarded her with a raised brow and deceptively patient eyes when she lowered it. She jumped involuntarily when the tips of his fingers touched the inside of her thighs, skating upwards lazily.

 _Very well. He is unlikely to stab me in the back._ Muriel didn't discount it entirely as a possibility, but tonight was tonight and tomorrow was tomorrow and she didn't see a victory, large or small, in killing her tonight.

She rolled her hips forward and Ondolemar clamped a hand down on her waist. "You humans have no patience at all," he chided her.

"I depart in the morning," she said breathlessly. "And the sun is already threatening to break. Unless you wish this to be as quick a tumble as your - " Her voice hitched into a moan as Ilmiril tugged at her hair. " - your man suggested..."

"True." Ondolemar nodded at Ilmiril, and the mer behind her made a soft growling sound, nuzzled at her hair, and then abruptly released her and stepped back. She could feel his eyes burning into her back and she combed a fistful of hair back from her face to look into Ondolemar's eyes. "You've enjoyed my hospitality and promised an unceremonious departure," he said dryly. "Now show me why I should continue to indulge this impulse, if you are so determined to see it go your way."

Muriel bit down on the spark of outrage that budded inside of her. He was very unlike anyone she'd lain with in her life, which shouldn't shock her. As if a layer of ice lived beneath his skin, provoking her blood to run hotter to combat the bite of frost. She shouldn't have taken the wine, she shouldn't have sat in his lap. She shouldn't be leaning forward now, breath choppy, to run her lips down the smooth dense curve of his collarbone.

He hummed, a noise of muted pleasure and restrained approval. She touched her tongue to the dip of bone, tasting his skin, stroking along its warm texture. He was fragile here. Muriel felt the eyes of his guards on her skin and she smiled.

"My lord," she said, and slid off his lap. He bent his head to follow her, eyes heavy on her, warming her skin. Before her she had the length of his legs and was surprised once again, despite herself, at the lean muscle in him; the musculature of a wary scholar, perhaps, but that of a mer very capable of violence nonetheless.

She touched his leg, sliding her palm to cup his knee, and turned her head. Perhaps she wasn't a spy who could discern a creature's motives from the first glance, but she had her guesses, and from his slow intake of breath at the sight of her on her knees, head bowed and mouth supplicant on his skin, she'd aimed true.

Now if only she could control the wild pounding of her own heart.

She kissed mouthfuls of skin slowly up his thigh, barely biting, tugging skin into her mouth and licking and releasing. His fingers came to cradle her skull - not pushing her upwards, but providing a quiet reminder of control.

Muriel let her breath warm him next, knowing well the teasing promise of a hot damp exhale over sensitive skin in the cold Reach. She pushed up his thigh, feeling soft skin and then the warm, hardening weight of his cock. He made no sound, implacable under the first brush of his lips, and her stomach wrenched with greed. She wanted him filling her mouth, hot on her tongue. She wanted to drag wrecked, throaty noises from him. Meryaran and Ilmiril watched them in taut silence, flanking her and filling the air with the weight of their attention, waiting, _watching._

Muriel leaned forward and took him into her mouth.

She had always thought of it like a kiss, before.

Among the Forsworn, love was swift and violent and desperate, sometimes bloodstained passion and sometimes small, starving moments of sweetness. With one of her brethren she might tease with teeth, pull off to nip his thigh, push and pull in a seesaw of dominance and play-threat. With an Altmer - with a _Thalmor_ \- the line was thinner and stranger. She filled her mouth with him and sucked. The golden warmth of his flesh was heady on her tongue, and there were no gasps or groans or muttered imprecations to guide her. Only his hand, now lazily burying itself in her hair, tightening minutely as she pushed forward and relaxed her throat.

The size of him made everything a challenge. Her mouth was wet and sloppy, and her nails sank into his thigh. But the small act of violence garnered no negative reaction, and so she relaxed minutely as best she could. When she swallowed around him, he hummed low in his throat, fisting his hand in her long hair.

His hips pushed up, almost choking her with the sudden movement when before he'd been almost completely passive, letting her work on him challengingly. A hand grazed down her back, making her twitch and splitting her attention - as much as it could be split, as overwhelming as Ondolemar's presence was.

It was almost an exercise in surreal sweetness. Barring the tightness of his grip against her scalp, the slow caresses of her tongue and hands and the tiny pulses of his hips drew out the moments languorously. Muriel wondered who had come up behind her, an edge to her thoughts. She didn't know.

Ondolemar whispered something between his teeth. Satisfaction rolled through her, igniting in her belly, and Muriel clenched her thighs. She drew off him for a second to gasp in a deep breath, stroking him instead with both hands. He was slick from her mouth and when she looked up at him his pupils were vast, his mouth drawn tight. He stared down at her with knife sharp intensity. She was almost drunk under the glare of his desire.

She wondered if he'd ever - no. The Thalmor, of all beings, would never. But the image of him beneath her under the open sky on a Forsworn altar, not spilling blood but fucking up into her as she drew magic from the sex and dried blood and new moon, was intoxicating. The magic they'd make on a ritual night would be devastating. She could taste his power under the thin sheath of his skin.

"What are you waiting for?" His voice was soft.

Muriel darted her tongue out and licked the head of his cock. A thin line of white teeth flashed, a line appearing between his aristocratic brows. That small fracture in his arrogant, aristocratic control was enough for the moment. Muriel lowered her head again.

He slid right down her throat this time, and it took only another moment for his hips to jerk. She almost choked on him, startled, and swallowed two hot pulses before she pulled her head back.

Ondolemar's head was tipped back, throat bared in a long vulnerable line, but then she was hauled back. It was Ilmiril, Ilmiril who had been touching her, and he kissed her viciously. His teeth sank into her lower lip and she staggered. The split second of lost footing was all he needed; he pulled her right off her feet.

Muriel's legs kicked. She gave a muffled squeal into his mouth, hating the feeling of instability, her stomach lurching with desire as his hands clamped on her ass and thigh. Ilmiril laughed into her lips and the sound was not entirely kind. He released her lip and filled her mouth with his tongue instead. They'd stepped away from the bed and now he walked toward it, returned her to its surface.

"Ilmiril," Meryaran growled.

"Hush, Meryaryan," Ilmiril murmured. She fell flat on her back and bounced, catching her breath harshly. He loomed over her, staring down, face still and hungry in the low glow, eyes enchantingly wide and pitch-dark. "I'd missed the pleasures of the flesh, here," he said - to her? It sounded like a threat. She couldn't explain how. He reached down and cupped his head over her throat, and Muriel sucked in a breath.

 _Kill him_. She could hear a hag's querulous hiss in her head, could feel claws closing over her shoulder. At least an Altmer's loathing of man was honest. Muriel narrowed her eyes at him.

She gripped his wrist, pinching flesh with her nails, and he laughed recklessly and fell over her. His first kiss scalded her, the next kiss drowned her. Her thighs opened around his hips without conscious order. He was - he was a storm of perfect violence and pleasure, and she couldn't trust him.

"Ilmiril." As before, it was Ondolemar's voice that reigned him in. He hesitated, then pushed up on his elbows. He kept the weight of his lower body heavy on her, pinning her in place. She felt ripped in a thousand different directions. The wine fuzzed in her head. Her thoughts clung like spiderwebs to the memory of his hand around her throat, his ecstatically cruel smile, but every other part of her rebelled at the thought. Dismissed it as suicidal.

"Muriel must make an early departure," Ondolemar said mildly. How did he sound so fucking calm? she thought. When she'd licked his seed off her lips her whole body had tingled from desire even in the face of his silence.

She pushed her head into the covers. The Justicar made it to the head of the bed, leaning his relaxed, loosely-wrapped shoulder against the carven wood. He was gazing at them with heavy lidded eyes, face composed as if he sat in a parlour, mildly drowsy on good wine and sedate conversation. He looked so fucking calm she wanted to tear his face off with her nails.

Ilmiril ground his hips into her and she bucked up, shocked. When he laughed softly she rolled her eyes down to him, lips curling off her teeth in offence. "You didn't forget me, did you?" he said softly. Moving more gently now, he lowered his head until his nose and mouth brushed her throat. Muriel felt herself tense, instinct buzzing in the back of her head - and then he bit down, hard. She convulsed against him, but not in protest.

The bed creaked. Her eyes fluttered open - realizing she'd closed them - and then there were four hands on her body. Meryaran spoke again in that sliding velvet tongue, mingling humiliation and curiosity and fear in her stomach. He finished with, "that means share, Ilmiril," in a low, amused tongue.

"It's not up to him," Muriel hissed. Meryaran's head tipped down, she felt his breath brushing her skin, attending to her words. She - ah, gods, fuck, she didn't know what she wanted. Their hands pressed down on her shoulders and she thought, daringly, that if she let this continue they'd push her into the covers and fuck her until she was only a thing that trembled between them and begged for more. Their teeth in her skin, their hands in her hair, their sigil on the door.

That kind of surrender wasn't a luxury she could claim in Markarth. Pride and wariness pushed her further. "If I please, he will go," she panted. "What you intend to slake your hunger on is not a doll but a woman."

Ilmiril pushed her back into the covers, hard. Meryaran's hand landed on quickly on Ilmiril’s shoulder in warning, the other still in her hair, a somehow bruising lover's grip. It was disconcerting, looking at Ilmiril's all-black eyes and knowing he was focusing on you like a lightning strike. "Should I apologize?" he asked, and there was a hint of a sneer there, warping his mouth like a child's. _Pride_ , her teachers whispered in her ear. _His failing is pride._ But like quicksilver, the sneer evolved into a slow, silky smirk. "Should I get on my knees and beg your forgiveness, little human?"

Muriel opened her mouth to snap something vicious in turn. "Just fuck me," she heard herself say, breathless. "Just fuck me, _now._ "

Even for a Forsworn, Ilimiril was a picture of unholy delight that inspired trepidation. He embodied it now, black eyes glittering, flushed lips parting over carnivorous white teeth. "Very well," he said as if he was conceding, granting her some favour.

Meryaran pulled her backward toward his legs, still silent. Ilmiril kneed her thighs open, leaning forward over her body, making her heart jump.

Behind them she could see Ondolemar leaning back against a pile of pillows. He hadn't bothered to refasten his robes. They spilled open, and she was almost swimming in disoriented lust. She could track the gleam of his sweat on golden skin all the way down to the trail of flaxen hair that vanished into his lap, covered by a careless fall of robe with meaningless modesty.

Her attention was jolted back to the mer hovering over her body when he pursed his lips and blew a cool stream of breath between her breasts.

"I can smell the blood on you," Ilmiril murmured. She let her eyes flutter shut. "Blood, and steel, and witchcraft." He licked her, hot tongue flicking out against her sternum. And then again, slower and more deliberate. "I can taste the magicka on your skin."

His hands moved down to her ass, cupping her and lifting her hips off the bed. He was making room for himself, and when he settled his hips and the ridge of his cock between her thighs she gasped and arched in a long throbbing line.

One of his hands ducked between them. The hard ridges of his knuckles brushed her in quick wet teases and Muriel opened herself further and rubbed hungrily against him. His wrist jerked. A quick tug to loosen his laces. Meryaran held her wrists and her torso pinned, but she could twist her lower body up and snake her legs around Ilmiril, pulling him closer. The only sound in the room was the harsh panting of her breath.

"Hold her still," Ilmiril ordered carelessly, voice low and even. Meryaran pinned her and she instinctively fought, movements half erotic and half violent as she sank her nails into what skin she could reach. She didn't let go of him with her legs, but her blood surged when the Thalmor effortlessly pinned her.

Ilmiril captured her mouth in a harsh kiss. Electricity stung between their lips and Muriel hissed and writhed, control skidding away. "Little witch," he whispered, and Muriel bit into his lower lip and dug her heels into the small of his back with a wordless snarl.

The head of his cock parted the blood-flushed lips of her sex, and he drove himself home not with a human grunt but with a hiss that crackled with magica of his own.

She arched up to him as he sank into her, her body shuddering with relief at being filled.

The weight of his golden body suspended above her consumed her whole vision of the world. All she could feel was Meryaran's hands bracketing her wrists, Ilmiril's hips between her thighs, and the slow rhythm he'd begun in her body.

He drew back slowly, almost entirely leaving her body, only the head stretching her open. She jerked up to meet him when he slammed back inside. When her eyes fluttered fully open Muriel saw his face, lips slack and eyes wide, absorbed almost boyishly in the sensation of being inside her. That look on him raced through her whole body, turning her blood molten and hot, drowning all vestige of rational thought.

The two Thalmor soldiers over her held her pinned, and Muriel still had her nails sunk into Meryaran's skin and her legs wrapped around Ilmiril's hips. She rolled her whole body up to meet Ilmiril, lips parting on a hungry, desperate gasp, and a grin like light dancing off the edge of the blade split his lips. He buried his head in her throat, teeth sinking into her throat in a ring of red sparks of pain. And still he moved in her as the bite turned to sucking greedy kisses, still his hips rolled against her.

Harder and harder the movements of his body surged against her, rocking her up until her hips were leaving the bed. Her wrists would be ringed with bruises tomorrow morning, she knew, and she craved it against all sense and self-preservation. She wanted the heat of the pain and she wanted him covering her, pushing her into the luxurious bed, his cock so thick and deep in her it almost ached, all of them watching her with expectant eyes.

She turned her head and snaked her tongue out against the narrow angle of his ear, managing to close her teeth in a delicate pinch against the flesh. He shuddered against her and sucked a mouthful of her skin into his mouth. He was marking her, she thought, and squirmed with displeasure.

Ilmiril reared up. He gripped her hips and tugged her up to sit in his lap, lifting off his hands to fuck into her, dragging her body between his hands and Meryaran's. If she craned her neck she could watch him disappear slickly into her body, see her own breasts trembling from the force of his thrusts. She clenched rippling muscles around him and watched his face spasm, felt his thrusts grow harsher.

One of his hands dropped between her thighs. Muriel whimpered and bucked as his thumb traced over the seat of her pleasure, then began to rub in hard, sure circles. His hair spilled around his face; it had come loose of its tie somehow and he looked gilded and frightening. He was watching her intently, and if she could just - keep this moment -

Her spine bowed off the mattress. Meryaran released a harsh, exquisitely restrained breath by her ear and her world dissolved into a bath of fire and ecstasy. She felt Ilmiril fall forward again, felt one hand tighten on her hip and the other land by her ribcage. He drove brutally into her, hips snapping against her, and she twined her legs around him and rode out the long waves of aftershocks, too dazed to do much else.

When at last he covered her body in a lax, sweat-slicked, muscular blanket, she saw Meryaran's hand land on the back of his neck in a gauntleted caress of steel. It was only then that she realized he no longer held her pinned. It was only the promise of tender bruises tomorrow that ringed her wrists now.

Meryaran dragged her out from under Ilmiril, leaving her slick and empty, hips arching helplessly, as his cock slid free. One hand was bare of his gauntlets; the other he hadn't bothered with, but the metal was warrm as flesh.

When he kissed her, manhandling her with rough efficiency into his lap, she tasted the wine on his breath and metal on his mouth. Some of his armour was unbuckled and discarded; her thighs spread wide over leather-clad legs, not metal sheathed, and the stitching over his groin had been unwound - but it wasn't enough, she decided in a fever of nervous anger and arousal. She was laid bare, vulnerable, and they were wrapped in fine fabric and authority. Muriel fumbled at the throat and shoulders of his tunic, tearing at the material, and he forced her hips down on his cock.

Ilmiril had prepared her. Ilmiril _should_ have prepared her. She tossed her head back with a full-body jerk and a whine between her teeth anyway as he sank deep inside.

The sensitivity of her last orgasm pulsed through every inch of flesh stretched around him. She squirmed in his lap, arching back as she panted for breath, unable to keep herself still or even establish of rhythm. Her nails found a glimpse of his skin beneath the collar of his shirt and she dug them into his skin with her lips peeled back from her teeth.

Meryaran lowered his head to her breast. His lips touched the skin over her sternum and then found her nipple, suckling with sharp little darts of teeth. She jerked with a ragged little cry and suddenly Ilmiril's fingers were in her hair and he was pressed against her back. "Your heart's going like a rabbit," he hissed in her ear. "Little mortal, little witch - " His hand dropped to where her body clasped Meryaran and he slid his fingers in a vee around their joining, caressing them both. She jolted like she'd been hit by a bolt of lightning and Meryaran gave a low, rough growl between his teeth.

"I'd like to hear you begging before you burn out," Ilmiril said, and bit her ear with sharp teeth. He said something to Meryaran, the words pouring out in liquid singsong syllables against her cheek, and then he turned her face with a grip on her jaw and gave her a hard kiss, sloppy and devouring.

Meryaran gripped her hips and fucked up into her one last inch, driving against her softness. Muriel gave a garbled, needy cry. She would have denied Ilmiril - snarled at him, bit into him, torn Meryaran's skin with the ferocity of her need - but the sound she made would have betrayed her anyway.

"Come on, little rabbit," Ilmiril said against her skin. He was bruising her, and he gripped her wrist now with his free hand, weaving his fingers with the same crushing strength through hers. "I want to hear you."

She tightened the muscles of her stomach and tried to move with Meryaran, staggering their rhythm for a moment. His hands slipped away from her; she slit her eyes open to see him leaning back, thin mouth iron hard and chin tilted up as he swallowed. He was bracing himself - to meet her, she realized as he thrust up at her more harshly. She shoved her hips down on him, burying his cock inside of her, and was more acutely aware of Ondolemar's eyes on them than she'd ever been of anything in her life.

"Come on, little rabbit," Ilmiril whispered again. She could hear her own high, breaking gasps. "Give yourself what you need."

Muriel squeezed her eyes shut. He was holding her cruelly, painfully, viciously - just - right -

She dragged her nails down Meryaran's chest, shirt bunching and dragging between their bodies, and he grunted and slammed up into her.

She was going to unravel, not just come but come apart. She could feel it squeezing in her arched spine and pounding between her temples. She pushed down against him, her thighs and his stomach smeared with her slick, and she bit into her lower lip until it bled.

Ilmiril hissed chidingly - _chidingly_ , like she was a child who'd misbehaved at her godsbedamned lessons - and slipped his thumb into her mouth. She bit him vengefully hard and he laughed against her hair and pressed in closer. "Meryaran," he growled, "fuck her like you mean it."

It was obscene that she'd want him this much. She'd had clever words before. Muriel had none now. She made a small, hoarse, helpless sound as he delved deep into her on the next thrust - still muscle tense-as-steel corded in his forearms, lips writhing back from his teeth, still _holding back_.

"Come on," Ilmiril whispered throatily, breath feathering her hair against her cheek. And then, as Ondolemar had simply done, but his rendition containing a breath-slick hiss of lust and provocation packed into one word, " _Meryaran._ "

Meryaran grunted, locked an arm around her hips, and rolled her.

When his weight swept over her she twisted her whole body up, spreading her thighs to let his hips sink fully into the cradle of her body. He drove close and hard and paused, the breath shuddering in both of them. The long, ungentle fingers of one golden hand clasped her thigh and slowly drew her leg up to her chest. He _leaned_ into her, his free hand digging into her ass. His movements were excruciatingly slow, his face closed off and hard, his body coiling like a spring.

It wasn't as it had been before, though - his expression wasn't a stone wall, impassible and superior, looking down at her like a very small ant a movement of his thumb would crush. His pupils were black and huge and a tiny glimpse of his teeth showed, transforming his closed mouth into the suggestion of a strained snarl. He looked almost seized with pain, such was the clear intensity of his need, and _Gods_ \- his gods, her gods, take the stone-kissed Talos for the blasphemy of it - she felt wild and liquid and clawing with need enough to match him.

His next thrust was harsh enough to rock her whole body up to her shoulders.

Her hand flew out, clawing into the sheets. Against all assumptions the way he was fucking her - fast and vicious and overwhelming, her body bunched up against him, his hips smacking into her - didn't drown out his companions. She could feel the gaze of both men - mer - on her skin. Someone took her wrist, not ungently, and took her hand away from its helpless clutch on the sheets.

Meryaran's thrusts rocked her against the bed, delving hotly into her, and when she craned her neck she saw Ondolemar's sculpted, obscenely calm face bent toward her. He slid her fingers between his lips and suckled, tongue curling wet and silky-hot against her skin, and she clenched against Meryaran's cock hard enough to make his rhythm falter.

Two harsh, off-kilter pushes of his hips and he paused. His hand landed warm and firm on the curve of her hip. He tipped her up to him and lowered his head until his mouth touched her throat over the throbbing pulse.

She didn't give the conscious order but her body jerked in rebellion, her free hand flying up to press her forearm against his collarbone. She saw an image of him, blood dripping down his oh-so-refined chin, flash in front of her eyes.

If he decided to kill her tonight he'd likely simply use his sword. Or strangle her to death on the bed. It was more like a Forsworn to tear a throat out. But she'd already moved and he'd already responded, slowing but not halting his thrusts and lifting his chin.

Ilmiril _laughed_ , and she was not surprised. "Wiser than most who come into our bed," he murmured. "Still, Meryaran." His tone cut. "You must not be working hard enough if she can think as clear as that."

Meryaran didn't respond to Ilmiril for a long moment, but he stared hard at Muriel. She couldn't entirely shake the impression that he was assessing her, or perhaps reassessing her. She turned her head, staring warily back, and their lips brushed in a feather-soft kiss.

His eyes turned hooded, gaining an almost sleepy darkness in the forbidding angles of his face. He deepened the kiss, tongue flicking out to part her lips. And his hips began to move again. The burst of alarm had cleared a little of her fog of desire and she felt every inch of him now, the head dragging against the clutch of her flesh, pushing mercilessly into her until their bodies almost met.

Harder and harder he thrust into her, until she couldn't keep on kissing him - she was twisting and gasping too much, her mouth wide open. He bit at her chin instead, her jaw, and his hands branded her - on her waist, the other tight on her breast - while he worked her with his cock.

Ilmiril put a hand on her body, slid it between their moving stomachs, and lazily thumbed her nipple. She came all at once, her body seizing up and her mouth opening over a series of choked whimpers. Meryaran pressed his closed mouth to hers so hard it hurt and kept on for four short, brutal thrusts before he stiffened deep inside of her.

He'd clamped her body to his. Muriel closed her eyes and let herself feel, luxuriously, his sweat-slicked ribs heaving against her for a long moment. She moved her legs restlessly, feeling her skin slid against his leather as the last pulses of orgasm rippled her around him.

He cursed gutturally - it could very well have been in Imperial common, as well as her brain was working right now - and rolled away from her. Muriel forced her eyes open, seeing the dark stone ceiling and feeling Ondolemar still holding her wrist casually against her thigh, feeling Ilmiril's hand relaxed against her side.

"And now?" Ilmiril leaned over her, long tail of hair slipping over his shoulder to tickle her damp skin. He kissed her mouth lazily, biting her lower lip until she flinched.

 _And now..._ Ah. She'd told them she could only stay a short while. Muriel shifted, letting her thighs rub together. "Is it morning?" she murmured. She'd have to heal herself before she set out if she wanted to move with any kind of acceptable stealth.

"Close," Ondolemar answered.

She pulled away from both of them, rolling to all fours and then sitting back on her heels. Yes, she'd need to soothe away these aches, but she could already feel the marks of their mouths and hands rising and - stupidly, she thought, knowing the last thing she needed was to be blatant - she'd regret losing them.

They were watching her - all of them, Ilmiril making no secret of his enjoyment, Ondolemar smiling faintly, Meryaran still partly dressed with a glitter of his eyes visible beneath his lashes.

She shrugged and lifted her hands, stretching her spine, aware that their eyes followed the movements of her breasts as she raked her fingers through her tangled hair. "I have time," she said. Reckless.

Ondolemar's smile deepened slightly. He gestured, the movement graceful and economical. "Ah," he said. "Very good. Then should it serve your pleasure, Breton - " An undercurrent of amusement, somehow both friendly and mocking, beneath his words. " - come here."

His tone was authoritative yet casual, an aristocratic voice used to wielding command. He didn't wield it over _her_ , she thought warily, but she came closer anyway. Her body was still pulsing with pleasure. She wanted to see how much further they could take her. She wanted to see his control shaken.

She wasn't used to sinking her claws into something and not having it squirm.

"How long?" Muriel touched his knee, pushed her hand daringly up the long warm expanse of his thigh. "How long until morning?" She crawled into his lap, tugging at the robe, rocking her hips. He was hard from watching them and she had to close her eyes and shudder for a second.

Ondolemar took control of her, one hand fisted at the base of her skull, the other on her waist. He lifted her up and she sank down on him gladly, opening up, feeling his cock sink heavy and wide into her. Feeling new wet heat begin pulsing like fire into her veins as if she hadn't just come.

"Hours," he said, but she had already stopped caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any thoughts or comments are deeply appreciated :)


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